


I Watch the Stars (to Lead Me Home)

by LylaRivers



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Feels, M/M, crowley and aziraphale knew each other before the Fall and were In Love, good Omens is Jewish and so am i, gratuitous misuse of the bible, the author is jewish and wants to flex on her bible knowledge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 18:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21360763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LylaRivers/pseuds/LylaRivers
Summary: Every night, Aziraphale makes a point to sit under the stars. He’s always liked the Jewish tradition of saying Kaddish for a loved one. It’s a beautiful statement in front of the community that the dearly departed will be remembered as long as there are community members to mourn them. He has no name to say Kaddish for- only a deep sense of mourning, and a few brief snatches of memory. An image of sure, steady hands making stars.Aziraphale mourns for a lost love every night.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 117
Collections: Good Omens is Jewish and so are we





	I Watch the Stars (to Lead Me Home)

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of my NaNoWriMo challenge to myself: write 30 fics of at least 1,667 words, one per day. Translations and notes are at the end for anyone who isn't hip deep in historical nonsense and Jewish tradition.
> 
> If you want to cry and get the full experience, please listen to Silhouette by Owl City. This was written with the lyrics interspersed in the text, but copyright prevents me from sharing it in that format. So, listen and cry with me.

Aziraphale watches Adam and Eve, newly expunged from the Garden, and feels a pang deep in his nonexistent heart. The tenderness and affection the first man and woman have for each other is obvious- there’s no reason for them to hide it. 

Aziraphale is  _ sure _ that he once had that, but the more he tries to think about it, the more his head aches. He has vague, fuzzy memories of someone who looked at him like Adam looks at Eve, but he actually remembers very little. 

All he knows is that his love once helped hung the stars. 

***

“They look different from down here, don’t they,” a voice somewhere to his right says. 

Aziraphale jumps, but it’s only the demon, Crawly. “What looks different from down here, pray tell?” he asks. 

Crawley gestures upwards, at the stars twinkling above them. “The stars,” he says. “You can’t see stars from Hell. I don’t remember much of Heaven, but I remember the stars. They were a lot  _ closer _ from Up there.”

“Well, of course they were,” Aziraphale says, but doesn’t elaborate. He shouldn’t be even conversing with a demon, let alone telling him about Heaven!

“Ssstill, it’s nice to be able to see the stars again,” Crawley says. 

“Yes, they are quite beautiful,” Aziraphale agrees. He doesn’t add the intense longing he feels when he looks up at the stars- they’re all he has left in memory of his lost love. 

_ Perhaps Crawley knew something about his star maker. The fact that he doesn’t remember his love probably means that they either died or Fell- maybe Crawley knows which demons helped to shape the sta… _

Aziraphale shakes himself firmly. He is absolutely not telling some random demon his deepest secret. Never mind the fact that he’s not sure that he really wants to know for sure what happened to his beloved. It’s better to not know than to be sure that his love is now a demon. Perhaps it’s better to assume that they died in the war. 

Either way, the thought makes his human stomach drop- not unlike the feeling of falling before you snap your wings out to soar. He desperately wants answers, but there’s no way to get them. No one Upstairs will talk about it- and no angel in their right mind would ask a demon. 

Maybe there’s a reason they all forgot. The Almighty’s ways are ineffable, after all. Maybe it hurts too much to remember.

Maybe he’s supposed to be this empty for all eternity. 

Aziraphale resolutely turns away from this line of thought, and watches over the first humans under the bright, ever watchful stars. 

***

Time progresses, as it is designed to do, and with every new meeting, Aziraphale finds himself drawn to the newly renamed Crowley. He defies all expectations for a demon, at every chance. He saves children from the Flood when he should rejoice in human suffering, and mourns Yeshua at the Crucifixion when he should be glad to see the Son of G-d die, and be rejected by humanity. They eat oysters together in Rome, and it’s friendly. 

For hereditary enemies, they don’t do a lot if smiting each other. If anything, their meetings are companionable. 

It should probably horrify Aziraphale to no end that he thinks of meeting a demon as companionable, rather than something to be avoided at all costs. A truly proper angel would take any opportunity to smite an agent of Hell, and free the people of Earth from evil influences for a short while. And any other demon he comes across, he does discorperate them- with extreme prejudice, at that. 

But there’s something about  _ this _ demon, that seems to forbid smiting. Maybe there’s something to be said for constantly thwarting the devil you know- and he does know this demon. He knows that Crowley doesn’t enjoy eating, but he loves wine. Crowley has a soft spot for children a mile wide, and that he abhors needless cruelty.

Every time they run into each other, there’s something deep in Aziraphale’s being that  _ sings _ . There’s a quiet recognition, a deep sigh of ‘ _ oh there you are. I was getting worried. Where have you been? _ ’

It should worry him. It should worry him  _ a lot _ . Good angels don’t enjoy the company of the Fallen. They don’t eat oysters with the Fallen, and they certainly don’t help said Fallen hide saved children on the Ark in sheer defiance of the ineffable. 

And for the love of everything that is Holy, they would never, ever,  _ ever  _ even consider sharing temptations and miracles with a demon for convenience. In fact, he should smite the venturesome bastard for daring to suggest that an angel of the Lord was capable of performing temptations, let alone that a Fallen demon was capable of performing Holy miracles. 

So why in the name of Somebody is he considering it? 

It’s only this one demon that he feels like this towards. Aziraphale has had an assortment of encounters with other demons, and he’s never had any warm or fuzzy feelings towards them. He’s never had a problem bringing the righteous wrath of Heaven upon them, and sending them back to languish in Hell, where they belong. 

There was a rather nasty incident with a demon hanging around Yonah, tempting him into avoiding his work for the Lord. Just when Aziraphale had smote the first demon, and seen Yonah delivered safely from the belly of the great fish to Ninevah, another demon showed up to bring anger to that poor prophet, convincing him that the people of Ninevah did not deserve to be saved. It was a definitive failure on Aziraphale’s part- he was supposed to have ensured Yonah’s safe passage to deliver the word of the Lord, and instead had to fight two separate demons, allowing a prophet of the Lord to be corrupted. 

Suffice to say, Aziraphale does not usually feel kindly towards demons. The Fallen are beyond G-d’s Grace, with no hope of redemption. They corrupt everything they touch. Therefore, Aziraphale should be extremely concerned that he has willingly shared meals with a demon, even comforted him! A good angel would bring the full wrath of the Holy Host upon any demon who even insinuated that an angel and a demon could share duties. 

As previously established, however, Aziraphale isn't a very good angel. That’s how he comes to start performing minor temptations for Crowley, and passing off minor miracles to the demon in turn. The first time, he’s so worried about Falling that after tempting a man to Wrath, he hides in his rented room for three days, keeping his wings out in the open and inspecting them for even a hint of black in the feathers. 

The next time, he only frantically inspects his wings for a day. If he didn’t Fall after the first temptation, then the odds are good that no one Upstairs has noticed, and he’s in the clear. After the second time, when no feathers darken, he decides that either the Almighty doesn't know, or doesn’t care. Otherwise, he’d have taken a nosedive straight into a pit of sulfur. 

But he never stops checking, even though he sometimes waits days or even weeks to inspect his wings. There’s always a chance that this is the temptation that does it, this is the one that makes him Fall. 

He never does. And every time he sees the demon, his traitor heart starts pounding, every time.  _ There you are _ , his soul sings.  _ I’ve been looking for you _ .

Sometimes, he remembers his lost love, whom some terrible fate befell. On his more selfish days, Aziraphale hopes that his love Fell, and became Crowley- surely that would be reason for him to feel as he does about the demon! 

Then he remembers himself. How dare he wish that another angel had Fallen, if only to spare his traitorous heart! It would be better for his love to have been killed in the fighting. Then they wouldn’t be subject to an eternity of agony, of endless suffering. A proper angel would never forget that. 

It really is a pity he’s such a bad angel. 

***

Every night, Aziraphale makes a point to sit under the stars. Angels are supposed to be impartial, but he’s always liked the Jewish tradition of saying Kaddish for a loved one. It’s a beautiful statement in front of the community that the dearly departed will be remembered as long as there are community members to mourn them. 

Aziraphale has no community to mourn with. Most other angels have fully put aside any brokenness in their hearts, accepting the Almighty’s gift of forgetfulness (if a gift it truly is). He has no name to say Kaddish for- only a deep sense of mourning, and a few brief snatches of memory. An image of sure, steady hands making stars. But still, he’s held onto these slivers with the vigor of a dying man clinging to a raft in the ocean. 

Spending time observing the stars every night becomes his act of Kaddish. There’s no minyan to witness his grief and offer comfort, but he has the warmth of knowing that some part of his love lives on. Even if he can’t mourn properly, at least his love can never be forgotten, not so long as the stars still burn in the sky, a testament to their artistry and beauty. 

***

Crowley asks him for Holy Water, and Aziraphale is horrified. How dare he abuse their friendship (and it is a friendship, Aziraphale has finally stopped lying to himself) to ask Aziraphale for utter destruction? 

After several days, Aziraphale considers that the close call in the bookshop, right at its opening, might be a factor in Crowley’s sudden desire for such a potent weapon. Certainly the Archangels would never hesitate to smite any demon, or to punish a wayward angel. He hesitates to consider what might happen to Crowley if Hell gets wind of their Arrangement. 

That doesn’t mean he likes the idea of Crowley with a ticking time bomb in his possession. 

***

When he learns what the Nazis are really after, Aziraphale takes it upon himself to go to the Continent. The land is miserable with suffering, the second great war ripping once great nations to shreds. So many young people, forever scarred by a war not of their choosing. 

The first time he finds a death camp, following the twin scents of misery and hope, he vomits, even though he hasn’t eaten since traveling to the Continent, even though he by all rights shouldn’t be able to vomit with no digestive tract. 

The absolute wretchedness needed to make these acts a reality horrifies him. Even demons don’t commit atrocities on this scale. The sadism and hatred needed to starve an entire people, to destroy them so utterly, to obliterate a culture like this repulses him on a primal level. 

Even amongst the horror, there are points of light. He meets a young poet, who brought aid to partisan groups in Yugoslavia. Hannah shines bright amidst the dreary dark of the times, not unlike the mother of a prophet he knew by the same name. 

When he hears of her execution in Hungary, he cries. 

He meets a young nurse, who smuggles children out of death camps. When he hears of her capture, he nudges an already corrupt Nazi official to accept bribes from the Zegota on her behalf. She escapes, and Aziraphale breathes a tiny sigh of relief. 

Everywhere, bright sparks are extinguished, and Aziraphale feels every hour of his age. Six thousand years of human suffering has culminated in this frenzy of hatred. 

After the war, he finds a poem. 

_ There are stars up above so far away _

_ we only see their light long after the star itself is gone.  _

_ And so it is with people we loved, _

_ Their memories keep shining ever brightly  _

_ Though their time with us is done.  _

_ But the stars that light up the darkest night, _

_ These are the lights that guide us. _

_ As we live our days, these are the ways we remember _

He likes to think that the Righteous earn a place up among the stars. That the light is just a little bit brighter, with eleven million innocent added to Heaven in such a short time. 

Synagogues start adding the six million nameless Jews who perished in the Shoah with no one to mourn them to their Kaddish lists. Aziraphale adds them to his thoughts as he gazes upon the stars, and holds Hannah’s words in his heart. 

***

After the Little Apocalypse that Couldn’t, Aziraphale and Crowley switch bodies. Aziraphale is glad he’s alone, because his entire being is flooded by a sudden  _ longing _ . He’s inundated with the muscle memory of Creation, of half- remembered snatches of conversation, of loving eyes and hands. 

_ Oh _ , he thinks.  _ There you are indeed.  _

And then- 

They survive. They dine at the Ritz. Aziraphale sits opposite Crowley, and for the first time in six thousand years, he doesn’t berate himself for loving a demon. After all this time, they seem to have become something else entirely. How else could they have survived mixing their essences as they had? Who else would have stood up to the Legions of Hell and the Host of Heaven?

They collapse into a drunken mess on the couch in the back of the bookshop, and Aziraphale doesn’t think twice about kissing this lovely being, who’s been with him since before the Beginning. Crowley looks at him in confusion, but Aziraphale just holds his head, and says, “I love you, my dear.”

I love you, and always have. I love you, and always will. Even before I knew who you were, I loved you. 

There will be time later to explain everything- the longing, the discovery with the body swap. But for once, Aziraphale doesn't duck out to watch the stars, as he’s done every other night since the Garden of Eden. 

His star is right here, and he never needs to search again. 

**Author's Note:**

> In order that they appear in the fic:  
Yeshua- Hebrew name for Jesus  
Yonah- Hebrew name for Jonah, translates to ‘dove’  
Kaddish- prayer for the dead. Recited every day for the first year of mourning, and on the anniversary of the loved one’s passing  
Minyan- a group of ten Jewish adults who have had their B'nai Mitzvah. Certain prayers, like Mourners Kaddish, require a minyan to say.  
Hannah Sennesh, Jewish poet and freedom fighter. 1921-1944. Author of Yeush Kochavim (There are Stars)  
Irena Sendler, social worker who smuggled Jewish children to safety out of the Warsaw Ghetto, 1910-2008  
Zegota- Polish Council to Aid Jews, an underground resistance movement


End file.
